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Jul. 22nd, 2012 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
multipurposegoddess Today's adventure in neuropharmocology: will a quadruple espresso made with decaf satisfy my coffee craving? So far so good.
Friday I took my mother to an olive oil tasting. We've done wine tastings and coffee cuppings and sampled vinegars, and we both appreciate a good olive oil, so it seemed like a good idea. Turned out to include a bit of a lecture on the sordid underbelly of the olive oil industry (Sordid! In various ways. Pretty interesting) but the meat of it was learning the little rituals for sampling olive oil - how to warm it with your hands and trap the aroma to get a good nose, etc. When they do this in competitions, they use cobalt glass cups so the color of the oil doesn't influence the judging. I couldn't distinguish between bouquets, on the whole, they all smelled grassy and, well, like green olives to me, but the differences in flavor were interesting. And the balsamic vinegar we got as a palate cleanser after the fusty and defective oil (so we could know what a defect tastes like) was sooooooo good. I have too much vinegar in my cupboard right now (I like vinegar, and when I taste one I like I usually buy it because who knows if I will find it again, so I have quite a bit. But this is an actual store, not a stand at a festival, so I'm pretty sure I can go back later and get some) so I didn't get any, but yum! And I did get some oil, which I also feel like I have too much of, but I use in more things. Mainly I'm glad to know where this place is, so when I do run low (I tend to from "too much" to "none at all" unexpectedly) I know where I can stock up easily.
Friday I took my mother to an olive oil tasting. We've done wine tastings and coffee cuppings and sampled vinegars, and we both appreciate a good olive oil, so it seemed like a good idea. Turned out to include a bit of a lecture on the sordid underbelly of the olive oil industry (Sordid! In various ways. Pretty interesting) but the meat of it was learning the little rituals for sampling olive oil - how to warm it with your hands and trap the aroma to get a good nose, etc. When they do this in competitions, they use cobalt glass cups so the color of the oil doesn't influence the judging. I couldn't distinguish between bouquets, on the whole, they all smelled grassy and, well, like green olives to me, but the differences in flavor were interesting. And the balsamic vinegar we got as a palate cleanser after the fusty and defective oil (so we could know what a defect tastes like) was sooooooo good. I have too much vinegar in my cupboard right now (I like vinegar, and when I taste one I like I usually buy it because who knows if I will find it again, so I have quite a bit. But this is an actual store, not a stand at a festival, so I'm pretty sure I can go back later and get some) so I didn't get any, but yum! And I did get some oil, which I also feel like I have too much of, but I use in more things. Mainly I'm glad to know where this place is, so when I do run low (I tend to from "too much" to "none at all" unexpectedly) I know where I can stock up easily.